Are We on the Brink of Civil War?

We discussed a bit last week about whether or not our country will see peace and stability with Donald Trump is in office.

A lot of people feel really confident and emboldened with him in the White House, but you’d have to live under a rock to not notice how many people feel completely panicked, violent, and angry. There’s actual violence being committed in the streets as the anarchist “#Antifa” coalition does their best to disrupt as much public expression of support for Trump or conservative values as they can.

I won’t sit here and pontificate about whether or not your should support the president and his administration, because there’s decent arguments on either side when it comes to him.

Since we’re in the business of preparedness and survival here, however, I want to discuss whether or not we might, in fact, be on the brink of Civil War in our country.

Facing Reality

As I mentioned, we need to face facts that there is more violent ideological conflict in this country than there has been in decades. Whatever will become of this conflict, it’s important to be realistic about what this might mean for our personal safety and survival.

Possibilities

It’s always prudent to examine history to determine if the possibilities of civil war are realistic. For example, during the Civil Rights movement, there was a lot of very emotionally and ideologically charged violence on either side of the conflict, and while it certainly turned our country upside down, it didn’t result in Civil War, even though the military ended up getting involved in some cases.

On the other hand, the Civil War of the 1800’s started with a huge conflict over slavery and state’s rights, which was a debate that had been going on since the foundation of our country, so many people’s entire political and ideological paradigm centered around the issues that ultimately led to the cessation of the Southern States and the Civil War itself. Are the conflicts going on in our nation right now as important to people as they were back then?

Unprecidented Conditions

While we can always learn from history, it’s also important to look at the social conditions in our nation that have never existed before. People can be mobilized, riled up, and even grossly misled by not only the 24-hour mainstream media news cycle, but the strange beast of social media as well. Many of the large-scale riots we have seen in the last few years have been organized this way. News travels fast and gets twisted to fit a certain agenda in a matter of minutes these days, and we are seeing that often times, the end result is actual violence in the streets.

The Sober-Minded Response

As preppers, we need to be able to put all politics aside and think about the implications of Civil War for our family. This won’t be news to anyone who follows this blog, but the sober-minded response is always going to be prepare, prepare, prepare. If there were to be war, it won’t happen overnight, so keep your eyes on the news and try to read between the lines of the official stories as well. Pay attention to the protests and riots. Get your household secure and stock up on clean water, food, supplies. You might even want to consider places you could relocate, especially if you live in an urban environment that might be the most affected.

The time might also come where you will need to decide if you want to pick a side, or how to safely remain neutral (if possible).

And finally, to add a bit of reassurance to this heavy topic, remember that people have been predicting Civil War for a few years now and, like martial law, it never seems to come to fruition. This doesn’t reduce the possibility of either of these scenarios, it’s just important to cut through the fat of fear mongering and the hyped-up “facts” of the social media generation and think realistically about what is really going to go down. There’s still a chance we’ll just have another 4-8 years of bickering, it just never hurts to prepare.